The end of a dynasty
I woke to semi-sad news this morning. Ted Kennedy has died. The death of any person diminishes me, and I said a prayer for his soul.
He’ll need it.
Although I may loathe people in the political arena, I cannot wish any personal ill upon them. I may scream and spit at them because I’m not catching the glow off of their guiding philosophical lights, but I am content to let them go their own way as long as they cause no great harm. I’m sorry Ted Kennedy succumbed to complications from his brain cancer. As a “Big C” survivor, I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst nemesis. When Bill Clinton underwent heart surgery a few years ago, I found myself in the relatively uncomfortable position of praying for him, too.
It is up to God and the Kopechne family to forgive Ted Kennedy for what he did wrong. I’m sure he did some good and right things along the way, but I’m at a loss to name even one. We forgive people for ourselves, not necessarily for their transgressions. Long before I knew the identity of my father’s murderer, God literally tossed him under a truck. His brother was a party to the killing, and if I ever confronted him and got some honest answers to a couple of questions, I’d have to do some soul-searching and maybe—just maybe—back off my eye-for-an-eye stance.
There has been much chatter from the pundits today about “the Kennedy dynasty.” There have been very few dynasties in the American presidency. By definition, John Adams and John Quincy Adams were a dynasty. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were a dynasty. Although Theodore and Franklin were only distantly related, I suppose we can define the Roosevelt family as a dynasty.
Ted Kennedy had three brothers, and he was the scrub of the litter.
Joe Jr. was the one his father was grooming for the presidency. Joe Sr. was a shanty-Irish immigrant who made his fortune in America by marrying well and associations with organized crime and the bootlegging boom of Prohibition. Not content with his big bucks, Joe Sr. sought respectability and ultimate power through his children.
Joe Jr. volunteered for a top-secret “flying bomb” project during War II. The idea was to take clapped-out B-17s that were still flyable, pack them with explosives, and equip them with then-state-of-the-art radio controls. This was the forerunner of the cruise missile. The planes would take off from England, piloted by a human who would bail out before the plane crossed the English Channel. Just before jumping, the pilot would set the controls for radio-guidance by the “mother plane”, and hit the silk. The plane would then be flown into a hard-to-hit target like an unmanned Kamikaze.
Joe Jr. took the bomber aloft and prepared to bail out. He was flipping switches, turning control over to the accompanying guidance bomber, when something went wrong. He flipped a toggle switch, and the thousands of pounds of high explosives went off and caused the plane to disintegrate in mid-air. The cause is undetermined to this day.
John F. Kennedy was next in line. His father had pulled some strings as a mover-and-shaker, and gotten him into the PT boat service in the Pacific theater. Anyone who remembers “McHale’s Navy” from TV knows this was an ideal venue for a playboy from Hyannis Port. PT boats were fast, sexy, and mostly out of harm’s way. They were fast-attack craft that didn’t have to hang around for whatever retaliation the Japanese navy might unleash.
On the night he became a war hero, John Kennedy did something that naval analysts have since called incredibly stupid. He cruised into enemy-controlled waters, and with no idea of where the foe might be, he shut his engines down. Dead in the water, PT 109 got run over by a Japanese destroyer. Two crewmen were killed, and the boat destroyed.
To his credit, JFK was heroic in looking after his crew and affecting their rescue. He later parlayed this heroism into a Senate seat, and ultimately the presidency, during the post-War-II reverence for brave leaders. He carried the third brother, Robert, on his coattails, and appointed RFK Attorney General of the United States. Bobby was also successful as a Senator, cashing in on the family’s name and cachet. Both of these men were assassinated; JFK while in office and Bobby when he stepped up to run for the presidency. No matter what their respective ideologies, this is not how we do business in America. The gunshots reverberate to this day.
That left Teddy. Even though he was the runt of the litter and last in line for a public position of any significance, and had been tossed out of Harvard for cheating on exams, he had to step up to the plate and assume the family mantle. Like President Obama, his Senate seat was never viewed as anything more than a stepping–stone to the presidency. Then, in July 1969, a drunken Ted left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod. He missed a turn for a narrow bridge, and the Oldsmobile ended up in the water. There was a woman-not-his-wife in the car, named Mary Jo Kopechne. In an unspeakable act of cowardice, Teddy bailed from the car and swam away, leaving Mary Jo to drown. Compare his actions to those of his brother, JFK, who swam in shark-infested waters for hours to assure the safety of his crewmen.
Massachusetts has been the private fiefdom of the Kennedys since Joe Sr. set up the family compound at Hyannis Port. Teddy suffered no legal ramifications from his cowardly act. He got a slap on the wrist from the authorities and a stern talking-to from his father. His shot at the presidency was forever ruined, and he returned to being the esteemed senior senator from Massachusetts.
The Kennedy family has been plagued by scandal and tragedy. Infidelity seems to be almost a way of life, putting me in mind of what Henry Kissinger said about power being the ultimate aphrodisiac. Various Kennedy cousins have been accused of rape and convicted of murder. Even unto Caroline and John Jr.—the children of JFK—the allegations continue. John and Bobby’s smarmy frat-boy sharing of Marilyn Monroe’s sexual favors is well established. Looking at the fraud of “Camelot” and today’s lionization of Ted Kennedy as some sort of superb statesman, I can only sigh and think of John and Yoko Lennon’s catchy tune about “Instant Karma.”
At the end, Ted Kennedy epitomized everything about Democrats. His final, unremarked-upon legacy is a cheap, tacky piece of political maneuvering.
During the 2004 election season—when he called Senator Obama “Osama Who?” before he got hip—and there was an offhand chance that professional Vietnam veteran John Kerry—the junior senator from Massachusetts—might get elected president and have to vacate his Senate seat, senior Senator Kennedy ramrodded some rule changes through the government of Massachusetts. Like many other states—Rod Blagoevich’s auctioning of Obama’s senate seat immediately jumps out—the governor of Massachusetts was authorized to appoint a replacement to a vacated senate seat.
At the time, Republican Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts. Fearing that a Republican governor would appoint a Republican to fill Kerry’s senate seat on the sketchy chance Kerry would be elected president, Ted Kennedy flexed his family’s power in the home state and got the law changed to require time-specific “special elections” that would hopefully take place after the presidency had been decided.
A few weeks ago, sensing his time on earth might be about up, Ted Kennedy sought to change the Massachusetts state law back to allowing the governor—currently a Democrat—to appoint a successor to his [Kennedy’s] office. This was cloaked in language about “how important it is to maintain two Democrat seats in the senate during the current…crisis”, but it was a blatant political ploy. I wonder if this was what The Manchurian Candidate meant by “transparency in government.”
Ted Kennedy, in this last grasping, was the perfect example of what liberals stand for. “If the game isn’t playing out your way, change the rules.” His brother Joe may have been the only hero in the family for boarding and flying that explosives-laden bomber. JFK was heroic after the fact, because he didn’t want to explain to daddy why he got his whole boat crew killed or captured. Bobby was an anal-retentive whiner. Ted murdered a woman through an act of inexcusable cowardice.
I hope this is the swan song of the Kennedy dynasty. JFK’s Caroline has too much personal baggage to replace Hillary Clinton in New York’s national Senate seat. John Jr. is dead in a plane crash. Bobby Jr. is a passionate tree-hugger with a whiny voice that is like fingernails on a blackboard.
I have empathy for this family’s travails, but Joe Sr. died years ago, and the pressure is no longer applicable. They need to retire and live in elitist comfort off the money the old bootlegger provided. They have nothing to prove with some faux sympathy for “the common people.”
Say goodnight, Ted. I’m sure you’ll be missed…somewhere.
He’ll need it.
Although I may loathe people in the political arena, I cannot wish any personal ill upon them. I may scream and spit at them because I’m not catching the glow off of their guiding philosophical lights, but I am content to let them go their own way as long as they cause no great harm. I’m sorry Ted Kennedy succumbed to complications from his brain cancer. As a “Big C” survivor, I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst nemesis. When Bill Clinton underwent heart surgery a few years ago, I found myself in the relatively uncomfortable position of praying for him, too.
It is up to God and the Kopechne family to forgive Ted Kennedy for what he did wrong. I’m sure he did some good and right things along the way, but I’m at a loss to name even one. We forgive people for ourselves, not necessarily for their transgressions. Long before I knew the identity of my father’s murderer, God literally tossed him under a truck. His brother was a party to the killing, and if I ever confronted him and got some honest answers to a couple of questions, I’d have to do some soul-searching and maybe—just maybe—back off my eye-for-an-eye stance.
There has been much chatter from the pundits today about “the Kennedy dynasty.” There have been very few dynasties in the American presidency. By definition, John Adams and John Quincy Adams were a dynasty. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were a dynasty. Although Theodore and Franklin were only distantly related, I suppose we can define the Roosevelt family as a dynasty.
Ted Kennedy had three brothers, and he was the scrub of the litter.
Joe Jr. was the one his father was grooming for the presidency. Joe Sr. was a shanty-Irish immigrant who made his fortune in America by marrying well and associations with organized crime and the bootlegging boom of Prohibition. Not content with his big bucks, Joe Sr. sought respectability and ultimate power through his children.
Joe Jr. volunteered for a top-secret “flying bomb” project during War II. The idea was to take clapped-out B-17s that were still flyable, pack them with explosives, and equip them with then-state-of-the-art radio controls. This was the forerunner of the cruise missile. The planes would take off from England, piloted by a human who would bail out before the plane crossed the English Channel. Just before jumping, the pilot would set the controls for radio-guidance by the “mother plane”, and hit the silk. The plane would then be flown into a hard-to-hit target like an unmanned Kamikaze.
Joe Jr. took the bomber aloft and prepared to bail out. He was flipping switches, turning control over to the accompanying guidance bomber, when something went wrong. He flipped a toggle switch, and the thousands of pounds of high explosives went off and caused the plane to disintegrate in mid-air. The cause is undetermined to this day.
John F. Kennedy was next in line. His father had pulled some strings as a mover-and-shaker, and gotten him into the PT boat service in the Pacific theater. Anyone who remembers “McHale’s Navy” from TV knows this was an ideal venue for a playboy from Hyannis Port. PT boats were fast, sexy, and mostly out of harm’s way. They were fast-attack craft that didn’t have to hang around for whatever retaliation the Japanese navy might unleash.
On the night he became a war hero, John Kennedy did something that naval analysts have since called incredibly stupid. He cruised into enemy-controlled waters, and with no idea of where the foe might be, he shut his engines down. Dead in the water, PT 109 got run over by a Japanese destroyer. Two crewmen were killed, and the boat destroyed.
To his credit, JFK was heroic in looking after his crew and affecting their rescue. He later parlayed this heroism into a Senate seat, and ultimately the presidency, during the post-War-II reverence for brave leaders. He carried the third brother, Robert, on his coattails, and appointed RFK Attorney General of the United States. Bobby was also successful as a Senator, cashing in on the family’s name and cachet. Both of these men were assassinated; JFK while in office and Bobby when he stepped up to run for the presidency. No matter what their respective ideologies, this is not how we do business in America. The gunshots reverberate to this day.
That left Teddy. Even though he was the runt of the litter and last in line for a public position of any significance, and had been tossed out of Harvard for cheating on exams, he had to step up to the plate and assume the family mantle. Like President Obama, his Senate seat was never viewed as anything more than a stepping–stone to the presidency. Then, in July 1969, a drunken Ted left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod. He missed a turn for a narrow bridge, and the Oldsmobile ended up in the water. There was a woman-not-his-wife in the car, named Mary Jo Kopechne. In an unspeakable act of cowardice, Teddy bailed from the car and swam away, leaving Mary Jo to drown. Compare his actions to those of his brother, JFK, who swam in shark-infested waters for hours to assure the safety of his crewmen.
Massachusetts has been the private fiefdom of the Kennedys since Joe Sr. set up the family compound at Hyannis Port. Teddy suffered no legal ramifications from his cowardly act. He got a slap on the wrist from the authorities and a stern talking-to from his father. His shot at the presidency was forever ruined, and he returned to being the esteemed senior senator from Massachusetts.
The Kennedy family has been plagued by scandal and tragedy. Infidelity seems to be almost a way of life, putting me in mind of what Henry Kissinger said about power being the ultimate aphrodisiac. Various Kennedy cousins have been accused of rape and convicted of murder. Even unto Caroline and John Jr.—the children of JFK—the allegations continue. John and Bobby’s smarmy frat-boy sharing of Marilyn Monroe’s sexual favors is well established. Looking at the fraud of “Camelot” and today’s lionization of Ted Kennedy as some sort of superb statesman, I can only sigh and think of John and Yoko Lennon’s catchy tune about “Instant Karma.”
At the end, Ted Kennedy epitomized everything about Democrats. His final, unremarked-upon legacy is a cheap, tacky piece of political maneuvering.
During the 2004 election season—when he called Senator Obama “Osama Who?” before he got hip—and there was an offhand chance that professional Vietnam veteran John Kerry—the junior senator from Massachusetts—might get elected president and have to vacate his Senate seat, senior Senator Kennedy ramrodded some rule changes through the government of Massachusetts. Like many other states—Rod Blagoevich’s auctioning of Obama’s senate seat immediately jumps out—the governor of Massachusetts was authorized to appoint a replacement to a vacated senate seat.
At the time, Republican Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts. Fearing that a Republican governor would appoint a Republican to fill Kerry’s senate seat on the sketchy chance Kerry would be elected president, Ted Kennedy flexed his family’s power in the home state and got the law changed to require time-specific “special elections” that would hopefully take place after the presidency had been decided.
A few weeks ago, sensing his time on earth might be about up, Ted Kennedy sought to change the Massachusetts state law back to allowing the governor—currently a Democrat—to appoint a successor to his [Kennedy’s] office. This was cloaked in language about “how important it is to maintain two Democrat seats in the senate during the current…crisis”, but it was a blatant political ploy. I wonder if this was what The Manchurian Candidate meant by “transparency in government.”
Ted Kennedy, in this last grasping, was the perfect example of what liberals stand for. “If the game isn’t playing out your way, change the rules.” His brother Joe may have been the only hero in the family for boarding and flying that explosives-laden bomber. JFK was heroic after the fact, because he didn’t want to explain to daddy why he got his whole boat crew killed or captured. Bobby was an anal-retentive whiner. Ted murdered a woman through an act of inexcusable cowardice.
I hope this is the swan song of the Kennedy dynasty. JFK’s Caroline has too much personal baggage to replace Hillary Clinton in New York’s national Senate seat. John Jr. is dead in a plane crash. Bobby Jr. is a passionate tree-hugger with a whiny voice that is like fingernails on a blackboard.
I have empathy for this family’s travails, but Joe Sr. died years ago, and the pressure is no longer applicable. They need to retire and live in elitist comfort off the money the old bootlegger provided. They have nothing to prove with some faux sympathy for “the common people.”
Say goodnight, Ted. I’m sure you’ll be missed…somewhere.
posted by Robert at 9:19 PM
3 Comments:
My dear Pappy used to say that they didn't shoot enough Kennedys. Can't say as how I disagree; here's what I did say, elsewhere:
Right now Mary Jo’s family is celebrating.
Somehow, I don’t think ol’ “Ted” makes it into Heaven…but of course, that’s not for me to decide; I suspect that I’m correct, though.
Ted's sins are between him and God, and not for us to judge. I believe in a loving God who forgives most anything if we come to Him, but he carries a large hammer, and drops it if we maintain our secular arrogance and refuse to admit we did anything wrong.
I am not aware of Ted Kennedy ever apologizing to the Kopechne family, or admitting he did anything wrong. I won't bet the farm on his chances of last-minute redemption in the hereafter.
I'm sure Ted provided all the penance required by his Priest...whether that gets him into Heaven or not, I can't say. I know I could never forgive someone for doing the cowardly, self-serving things he did on that fateful day. I can also say for sure that his years of championing the poor (if that's how he wanted us to see it) did nothing to balance those sins in my mind.
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